Jean-Alphonse Turrettini (1671–1737) on Natural Theology: The Triumph of Reason Over Revelation at the Academy of Geneva

1994 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 301-326 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Klauber
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Gradual Development ◽  
The Times ◽  
The Trinity

Michael Heyd has described the late seventeenth and early eighteen centuries as an era of gradual development from Orthodoxy to the Enlightenment at the Academy of Geneva. One of the most important facets of this change was the eventual triumph of reason over revelation and the inevitable elimination by the mid-eighteenth century of many of the essential doctrines of the faith such as the Trinity and the Incarnation. Deism and atheism, which were becoming more and more feared at the Academy, posed the greatest threats to Reformed thought. Those theologians who considered themselves to be orthodox Protestants and yet enlightened to the use of reason to defend Christianity, attempted to protect the faith against the unique challenges of the times. Their extensive use of reason was a marked departure from the traditional Reformed approach to Apologetics and radically transformed the very nature of Reformed Protestantism. It is the purpose of this paper to show that the specific challenges of this era provided the theological faculty at the Academy of Geneva, and especially Jean-Alphonse Turrettini, the leader of the so-called enlightened orthodox party, with the predisposition to employ a rationalistic approach to natural theology.

Early Modern Socinianism and Unitarianism

2014 ◽  
pp. 360-372
Author(s):  
Sarah Mortimer
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Christian Ethics ◽  
New Era ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Changing Attitudes ◽  
The Trinity

This essay describes the version of Christianity set out by Faustus Socinus, including his critique of the Trinity and the atonement, and his understanding of Christian ethics. It shows how his theology was taken up and developed by later Socinians, and describes how the role of reason in Socinian theology changed. The challenges which Socinianism posed to mainstream theology, especially in a period when new philosophies were being explored, are outlined. From the middle of the seventeenth century, Arian and then Unitarian ideas were heard, but these then receded into the background in the eighteenth century. It is suggested that the anti-Trinitarians benefited from changing attitudes toward philosophy and human nature during the Enlightenment, but that the French Revolution ushered in a new era of conservatism and hostility toward Socinianism and Unitarianism, at least in Europe.

scholarly journals Johann Friedrich Blumenbach’s ‘New Hollander’

2020 ◽  
pp. 31-56
Author(s):  
Antje Kühnast
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Physical Anthropology ◽  
Indigenous Australians ◽  
Human Diversity ◽  
Indigenous Australian ◽  
Black Race ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Human Skulls ◽  
The Times

The colonisation of Australia, at the end of the eighteenth century, coincided with the birth of (physical) anthropology. In Germany, it was the Enlightenment naturalist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach who began to utilise human skulls as scientific evidence for his hypotheses on human diversity and origin. He assigned selected skulls to be representative of each of his five human ‘varieties’. Due to this very fact, Blumenbach’s own historiographical representation is ambiguous – he has been depicted as both the forerunner of race sciences that were to follow in the 1900s and the humanist and universalist defender of human unity and universal value in the times of slavery. This article discusses how Blumenbach throughout his writing on humanity incorporated his notion of Indigenous Australians. In 1775, he outlined a sequence of human skulls, including those of ‘New Hollanders’, long before he began to assemble his (in)famous skull collection. Roughly fifteen years later, he obtained the skulls of two Indigenous Australian men which then represented the ‘black race’ of his diversified South Pacific ‘Malay variety’. The ‘Neuholländer’ in Blumenbach’s work, arguably, also reflects the tension inherent in his aim to scientifically prove humanity’s unity on the basis of its diversity.

John Ray, physico-theology and afterwards

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 328-348 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. Berry
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Intelligent Design ◽  
Trinity College ◽  
Natural Theology ◽  
Biblical Interpretation ◽  
John Ray ◽  
The Way

Ray's most widely read book was his Wisdom of God manifested in the works of creation (1691), probably based on addresses given in the chapel of Trinity College Cambridge 20 years previously. In it he forswore the use of allegory in biblical interpretation, just as he had done in his (and Francis Willughby's) Ornithology (1678). His discipline seeped into theology, complementing the influence of the Reformers and weakening Enlightenment assumptions about teleology, thus softening the hammer-blows of Darwinism on Deism. The physico-theology of the eighteenth century and the popularity of Gilbert White and the like survived the squeezing of natural theology by Paley and the Bridgewater Treatises a century after Wisdom … , and contributed to a peculiarly British understanding of natural theology. This undergirded the subsequent impact of the results of the voyagers and geologists and prepared the way for a modern reading of God's “Book of Works” (“Darwinism … under the disguise of a foe, did the work of a friend”). Natural theology is often assumed to have been completely discredited by Darwin (as well as condemned by Barth and ridiculed by Dawkins). Notwithstanding, and despite the vapours of vitalism (ironically urged – among others – by Ray's biographer, Charles Raven) and the current fashion for “intelligent design”, the attitudes encouraged by Wisdom … still seem to be robust, albeit needing constant re-tuning (as in all understandings influenced by science).

The “New Empire of Common Sense”

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul B. Wood
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Thomas Reid ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Joseph Priestley ◽  
Common Sense Philosophy

Although the rise of Scottish common sense philosophy was one of the most important intellectual developments of the Enlightenment, significant gaps remain in our understanding of the reception of Scottish common sense philosophy in the Atlantic world during the second half of the eighteenth century. This chapter focuses on the British context in the period 1764–93, and examines published responses to James Oswald, James Beattie, and, especially, Thomas Reid. The chapter contextualizes the polemics of Joseph Priestley against the three Scots and argues that it was Joseph Berington rather than Priestley who was the first critic to claim that the appeal to common sense was the defining feature of “the Scotch school” of philosophy. It also shows that Reid was widely acknowledged to be the founder and most accomplished exponent of the “school”, whereas Beattie and Oswald were typically dismissed as being derivative thinkers.

Classical Learning in Britain, France, and the Dutch Republic, 1690-1750

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Floris Verhaart
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Ancient Greece ◽  
Classical Antiquity ◽  
General Point ◽  
Classical Literature ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Literary Value ◽  
Age Of Reason ◽  
Renaissance Humanism ◽  
The Enlightenment

The Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries was a moment when scholars and thinkers across Europe reflected on how they saw their relationship with the past, especially classical antiquity. Many readers in the Renaissance had appreciated the writings of ancient Latin and Greek authors not just for their literary value, but also as important sources of information that could be usefully applied in their own age. By the late seventeenth century, however, it was felt that the authority of the ancients was no longer needed and that their knowledge had become outdated thanks to scientific discoveries as well as the new paradigms of rationalism and empiricism. Those working on the ancient past and its literature debated new ways of defending their relevance for society. The different approaches to classical literature defended in these debates explain how the writings of ancient Greece and Rome could become a vital part of eighteenth-century culture and political thinking. Through its analysis of the debates on the value of the classics for the eighteenth century, this book also makes a more general point on the Enlightenment. Although often seen as an age of reason and modernity, the Enlightenment in Europe continuously looked back for inspiration from preceding traditions and ages such as Renaissance humanism and classical antiquity. Finally, the pressure on scholars in the eighteenth century to popularize their work and be seen as contributing to society is a parallel for our own time in which the value of the humanities is a continuous topic of debate.

‹ Rococo › : du jargon à la catégorie de style

2017 ◽  
Vol 80 (4) ◽  
pp. 474-487
Author(s):  
Marie-Pauline Martin
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of ◽  
Louis Xvi ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Louis Xv ◽  
Objective Existence

Abstract Today there is a consensus on the definition of the term ‘rococo’: it designates a style both particular and homogeneous, artistically related to the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI. But we must not forget that in its primitive formulations, the rococo has no objective existence. As a witty, sneering, and impertinent word, it can adapt itself to the most varied discourses and needs, far beyond references to the eighteenth century. Its malleability guarantees its sparkling success in different languages, but also its highly contradictory uses. By tracing the genealogy of the word ‘rococo’, this article will show that the association of the term with the century of Louis XV is a form of historical discrimination that still prevails widely in the history of the art of the Enlightenment.

THE “HARD FORM” OF SCULPTURE: MARBLE, MATTER AND SPIRIT IN EUROPEAN SCULPTURE FROM THE ENLIGHTENMENT THROUGH ROMANTICISM

2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 455-486 ◽  
Author(s):  
LINDA WALSH
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Early Nineteenth Century ◽  
External Appearance ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Late Eighteenth Century ◽  
Late Eighteenth ◽  
Familiar World ◽  
A Site ◽  
Aesthetic Values

The apparently distinct aesthetic values of naturalism (a fidelity to external appearance) and neoclassicism (with its focus on idealization and intangible essence) came together in creative tension and fusion in much late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century sculptural theory and practice. The hybrid styles that resulted suited the requirements of the European sculpture-buying public. Both aesthetics, however, created difficulties for the German Idealists who represented a particularly uncompromising strain of Romantic theory. In their view, naturalism was too closely bound to the observable, familiar world, while neoclassicism was too wedded to notions of clearly defined forms. This article explores sculptural practice and theory at this time as a site of complex debates around the medium's potential for specific concrete representation in a context of competing Romantic visions (ethereal, social and commercial) of modernity.

A Russian Mystic Faces the Age of Rationalism and Revolution: Thought and Activity of Ivan Vladimirovich Lopukhin

1967 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 170-188
Author(s):  
Alexander Lipski
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
Russian Culture ◽  
Peter The Great ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Western Influence ◽  
The World ◽  
Extreme Degree ◽  
State Of Mind

It is generally accepted that even though rationalism was predominant during the eighteenth century, a significant mystical trend was simultaneously present. Thus it was not only the Age of Voltaire, Diderot, and Holbach, but also the Age of St. Martin, Eckartshausen and Madame Guyon. With increased Western influence on Russia, it was natural that Russia too would be affected by these contrary currents. The reforms of Peter the Great, animated by a utilitarian spirit, had brought about a secularization of Russian culture. Father Florovsky aptly summed up the state of mind of the Russian nobility as a result of the Petrine Revolution: “The consciousness of these new people had been extroverted to an extreme degree.” Some of the “new people,” indifferent to their previous Weltanschauung, Orthodoxy, adopted the philosophy of the Enlightenment, “Volter'ianstvo” (Voltairism). But “Volter'ianstvo” with its cult of reason and belief in a remote creator of the “world machine,“ did not permanently satisfy those with deeper religious longings. While conventional Orthodoxy, with its emphasis on external rites, could not fill the spiritual vacuum, Western mysticism, entering Russia chiefly through freemasonry, provided a satisfactory alternative to “Volter'ianstvo.”

Deveolpment of Constitutional Law on the Territory of Ukranie (IX-XIII Centuries)

2021 ◽  
pp. 1006-1014
Author(s):  
Oksana Pylypchuk
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Constitutional Law ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Democratic State ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Times ◽  
Grand Duchy Of Lithuania ◽  
History Of Formation ◽  
Grand Duchy ◽  
Submission Date

The article is devoted to the history of formation and development of Ukrainian constitutionalism. It is shown that during the times of Kievan Rus and the Galicia-Volyn principality monarchical states with elements of a democratic state and political regime were formed on Ukrainian lands. It is highlighted that the formation of the Ukrainian nation and its path to its own state was carried out under the conditions of aristocratic democracy of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It is emphasized that the Ukrainian people in the XV century became part of a large European society, which became the basis for the emergence of constitutional ideas in the Ukrainian ethnic lands, the creation of the Cossacks and the revival of their own Ukrainian state in the former Kievan Rus. It is noted that the results of the development of Ukrainian constitutionalism in the eighteenth century was presented in the Constitution of Hetman P. Orlyk in 1710, which became one of the most democratic constitutions in Europe at that time. Fecha de envío / Submission date: 25/02/2021 Fecha de aceptación / Acceptance date: 19/04/2021

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document